No Mistress of Mine

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “Thank you, Dawson. I will take care of it.”

  The secretary gave a nod and departed, once again closing the door behind him.

  “I can’t imagine what I left out,” Lola said, circling his desk and pausing beside him to study the sheet of paper in his hand. “I thought I’d been most thorough in my application.”

  He pointed to the appropriate place on the form, and as she leaned closer, he instinctively turned his head, inhaling the luscious scent that clung to her hair. But that was too much provocation for his already heated body, and he jerked his head back again at once, hastening into speech. “You did not give the name and address of your agent in London.”

  “Oh, that.” She straightened, but the infinitesimal amount of distance the move put between them wasn’t nearly enough to contain the traitorous feelings in his body. He had to get her out of here.

  “Perhaps,” he said, feeling a bit desperate, “you could give Dawson that information on your way out?”

  She waved one hand in the air, dismissing that suggestion. “It’s not necessary.”

  “But it is. To draw up your contract, our solicitors require that your agent be specified in the terms.”

  “And if an actor doesn’t have an agent? What then?”

  “You don’t have an agent?” He stared at her askance. “Why on earth not?”

  “Henry handled all of that for me. Since he died, I haven’t looked . . .” She paused and her mouth tightened at the corners. “I don’t see the need for an agent now. That’s all.”

  This reminder of Henry was sufficient to keep the traitorous sensations in his body from wholly overtaking him. “Lola, this won’t do. You need an agent.”

  “Why?” Unexpectedly, she smiled at him. “Do you intend to take advantage of me, Denys?”

  The room was far too warm, and he felt an almost irrepressible desire to loosen his tie. He suppressed it. “Don’t flirt with me,” he reproved in as cool a voice as he could muster. “It’s a deflection, Lola, one you use whenever you don’t like the direction of a conversation. What I don’t understand is the reason you’re prevaricating.”

  Caught out, she gave a sigh, but she didn’t explain.

  “Is Henry the reason for this aversion to having an agent? Do you . . .” He paused, but after a moment, he forced himself to go on. “I’m sure you miss him, but you’re not doing yourself or his memory any good by procrastinating about finding someone else to represent your interests.”

  “I’m not procrastinating,” she protested. “In my current situation, I just don’t see the need for an agent. Someone who’ll charge me an outrageous percentage to arrange a contract between me and my own partner? Seems quite silly to me.”

  “Just because I’m giving you a fair situation, it doesn’t mean others will. You need an agent. To find you work, to negotiate your contracts—”

  “I already have work. As to negotiating my contract, I think you and I can muddle along without bringing a third party into it.”

  “You’re far too trusting.”

  “I’m not trusting at all, but I know you, and I know how scrupulously honest you are. You could no more cheat me than you could betray your country.”

  He found this evidence of how well she understood his character rather galling. “And what if you don’t retain your place in the company next season?”

  “I’ll worry about that when it happens.”

  “What if you wish to obtain work elsewhere?”

  “A competitor?” Her scoff made short shrift of that possibility. “As I said, I want to work with my partner in my company, not somewhere else. Besides,” she added with a smile, “I intend to see that we only hire those directors who appreciate my brilliant dramatic skills.”

  His opinion about that must have shown on his face, for her smile faded, and she sighed. “That was a joke, Denys.”

  He didn’t feel like laughing. “If Othello proves a flop,” he went on doggedly, “you may wish to pursue a place with some other company—”

  “It isn’t going to flop.” Her eyes opened wide. “With Arabella Danvers, London’s most famous and popular Shakespearean actress, in a leading role, how could it ever be a flop?”

  Despite everything, that almost made him smile. Impudent minx, he thought, to toss his rationale for hiring Arabella back in his face. “Mrs. Danvers’s involvement, as valuable as it is, is no guarantee of success. You know as well as I do there’s no predicting how these things will go.”

  “We can safely make one prediction, at least,” she said, flashing him a grin. “On opening night, they’ll be packed to the rafters just to see if Lola Valentine proves as spectacular a failure this time as she was last time.”

  He caught the pain behind those words. “Which is why it’s best if you find an agent now,” he pointed out even as he wondered why he should care.

  “To hedge my bets, you mean?” She sobered, looking at him. “I’ll do my best not to let you down a second time.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I only meant that a failed play could color your entire season, making it harder for you to find work next year if you do go elsewhere. An agent would make the process easier.”

  “I doubt it.” She wrinkled up her nose with a rueful smile. “You’ve obviously forgotten I had an agent during A Doll’s House. When the play closed, he was no help whatsoever. He suggested I consider abandoning acting altogether. He said it didn’t really matter, anyway, since I already had another, much more lucrative career.”

  “Dancing?”

  “No.” Her smile faltered as her gaze locked with his. “You.”

  Denys sucked in his breath, feeling that reminder of their former relationship like a knife between his ribs. He yanked open the left-hand drawer of his desk, shuffled through the cards docketed there, and pulled out three. “Here,” he said, holding them out to her.

  “What are these?” she asked as she took them, but after one glance at the card on top, she shook her head. “Denys, I told you—”

  “I don’t care what you told me. These men are well-regarded agents, tenacious at negotiation, and scrupulously ethical. Jamison might suit you best since he represents the widest variety of clients, but none of these men will try to shove you into musical revue or dance if those aren’t what you want. They’ll fight for you, they won’t cheat you or abandon you, and they certainly won’t make unsavory insinuations about your private life. Go interview them and pick one. Or find one on your own. Either way,” he added, hoping he would at last be able to bring this meeting to an end, “I won’t sign contracts with you until you have an agent.”

  She bristled at that. “You’re being very autocratic about my career.”

  “If you don’t like it, you are free to find work elsewhere.” It was his turn to smile. “The Gaiety would probably hire you.”

  Her displeasure seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come, and even before she smiled again, he knew she was changing tactics. When she spoke, her words came as no great surprise.

  “Let’s compromise. That’s what partners do together, isn’t it?”

  He thought again of afternoons in bed with her, but this time, he managed to keep his gaze on her face. “What sort of compromise did you have in mind?”

  She held up the cards. “I’ll find an agent if you’ll agree to a partners’ meeting.”

  He gave a laugh. She was so outrageous, he couldn’t help it, even now, with erotic images in his mind and desire seething in his body. “So to get something you want, you’re offering to do something that benefits you?”

  She bit her lip, looking at him over the cards in mock apology. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “And if I agree to this, what’s in it for me?”

  “What do you want?”

  That provocative question was like a gust of wind on burning coals. His amusement vanished, and his arousal flared into outright lust, providing irrefutable proof—as if he needed any—that being
partners with Lola was an impossible undertaking.

  “Nothing,” he answered, hating that even now, even after everything that had happened, he could still be aroused by her against his will. “There is nothing I want from you except for you to stay out of my way.”

  “And I can’t accept that. So the only alternative is tear the Imperial apart. Is that what you want?”

  He hated that it came to that sort of Hobson’s choice. Hated that he was trapped in something from which the only escape route was annihilation. “If it would rid me of you,” he answered, “then yes.”

  “If that were true, you’d never have agreed to let me audition for a part in the first place. You’d have shown me the door and told me to sue you in the courts.”

  “A choice I’m questioning more and more with each moment you stand here,” he muttered, glaring at her. “Business partners don’t have to like each other, but they do have to trust each other, and my trust is something I will never give you again.”

  She flinched, but she didn’t move to leave. “Never is a long time, Denys, and I intend to earn your trust. And I know you’re seething with resentment, which is understandable, but that’s a hard thing to keep up, day after day, year after year.”

  The mention of years was a reminder of just how trapped he was. “Be damned to you. What you’re suggesting is impossible.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “Don’t you?” Provoked beyond bearing and frustrated as hell by a desire that still seemed unconquerable, he wrapped an arm around her waist. The application form fluttered to the floor as he pulled her hard against him.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  “You want to know why this won’t work, Lola?” Desire thrumming through his body, he cupped her cheek, his thumb pressing beneath her jaw to tilt her head back. Her skin was as soft as he remembered, the fragrance of her hair as intoxicating as ever, and even as he told himself he was making a fatal mistake, Denys bent his head. “This is why,” he said, and kissed her.

  Chapter 9

  The moment his lips touched hers, pleasure pierced Lola like an arrow, pleasure so keen and so sharp that she cried out against his mouth.

  He responded at once, his arms tightening around her as he pulled her even closer, and her mind tumbled back into the past, to summer afternoons in St. John’s Wood, to scents of bay rum and jasmine, to hot, frantic lovemaking and its languid, luscious aftermath, to a time and a place where sensation and bliss were the only things that mattered, where they had tried to burn away the social difference between a viscount and a cabaret dancer.

  Denys, she thought, and the pleasure deepened and spread until it was in every part of her body, bringing a yearning she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years.

  Her lips parted, and he deepened the kiss, tasting her tongue with his own in a carnal caress that inflamed all her senses. Her handbag hit the floor with a thud, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  He made a rough sound against her mouth, and his embrace loosened, but he did not push her away. Instead, his hands slid down, gliding along her ribs to her hips. His palms felt like fire, seeming to burn through all the layers of her clothing as he pulled her closer.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should stop this, for it could ruin everything she’d come here to do, but she feared it was already too late. The sandpapery texture of his cheek, the taste of his mouth, the hard feel of his body, were so achingly familiar, and when his grip tightened and he lifted her onto her toes, bringing her hips flush against his, she couldn’t summon the will to push him away.

  She’d thought enough time had gone by. She’d thought both of them would be over this by now. Denys’s kiss, his caress, his lovemaking, those afternoons together—she’d worked so hard to make all of those things nothing but a distant memory. She thought she’d succeeded. Yet now, with his body against hers and arousal flooding through her, it was as if not a single day had passed.

  Without warning, he broke the kiss. His hands tightened on her hips, then he shoved her away and took a long step back, his hands falling to his sides.

  Lola stared at him, wordless, her senses reeling and her lips still burning. She ought, she supposed, to say something—something offhand so they could both get their bearings and pretend this hadn’t happened. But for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a thing. She pressed her fingers to her mouth and said nothing.

  It was Denys’s voice that broke the silence. “God,” he said, his voice ragged, “if this doesn’t prove the point, nothing will.”

  She frowned, striving to think. “What point?”

  He took a deep breath and another step back, rubbing his hands over his face. “The one I’ve been trying to make since you arrived here.”

  Those words hit her like a splash of ice water, snuffing out all the fire raging through her in an instant, leaving her as spitting mad as a wet cat. “You kissed me to prove a point?”

  “No, I didn’t. Although it’s a damn fine way to make the case, and I wish I’d thought of it.” He glared at her, seeming as angry as she, though why he thought he had any grounds to be angry was beyond her. “But when you’re anywhere in the vicinity, my capacity to think, even of devious plots to drive you away, deserts me utterly.”

  “So what just happened is my fault?” Lola glared back at him, outraged that he was painting her as some sort of wicked seductress. “Of course it is. I was standing here, after all, and a man can’t be expected to conduct himself in honorable fashion when a notorious dancer with a ruined reputation is standing in front of him. That’s too much to ask of any man, even a gentleman such as you.”

  That shot hit the mark, she could tell, for a hint of what might have been regret crossed his face. But if she thought he’d offer an apology, she was mistaken. “As I said before, I didn’t do it to prove a point, but the point is made just the same. A partnership between us just can’t work.”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Oh, no, no, no. If you think your conduct this morning—deliberate or not—will enable you to wriggle out of your obligations here, you are mistaken.”

  “Obligations?”

  Her anger hardened into resolve. “I’m calling a partners’ meeting. According to the Imperial’s bylaws, I have that right, and I’m exercising it. I will make the arrangements with your secretary.”

  “Make whatever arrangements you like, but I have no intention of attending any such meeting.”

  “Do as you please.” She bent and picked up her handbag from the floor. “If you are absent, I will make whatever business decisions I deem necessary. You will be apprised in the minutes of what I have decided. I think I shall begin by deciding next year’s playbill.”

  “A pointless exercise. Without my consent, you can’t carry out such a decision, or any other, for that matter.”

  “Neither can you.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “If you think you can stonewall me, Lola, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “Call it what you will, but we are still equal partners—”

  “Are we, indeed?” he cut in before she could finish. “In a legal sense, I suppose you’re right. But in a partnership of true equality, each partner brings something of benefit to the whole. What do you bring that I don’t already have?”

  “Plenty. I have ideas—”

  “Every actor worth his salt has ideas. Every actress has notions of how to play her part and what costume she wants to wear. But that doesn’t make her a valuable business partner. For that, Lola, you’re going to need more. Do you have connections I’ve no access to? Influence in London theater circles I don’t possess? Experience in production? Theater management? Do you have any business acumen at all? Hell, for all these ideas you claim to have, can you contribute even one idea that would increase the Imperial’s profits? Or,” he added, his dark eyes hard as granite, “is your greatest talent merely that of sleeping with the right man at the right time?”

&nb
sp; “Oh,” she breathed, outraged. Clearly, he was attempting to intimidate her, but it was not going to work. “First of all,” she said through clenched teeth, “I’ve only slept with two men in my entire life, and one of them was you, so perhaps instead of pointing out my supposed deficiencies, you ought to take a good, hard look at your own. Hypocrisy being a prime example, as your lack of gentlemanly conduct has just demonstrated.”

  She paused just long enough to suck in a breath before going on. “Second, as much as you deny it, the fact remains that legally, I am your full and equal partner, and though it’s obvious I can’t expect your trust or your forgiveness or your personal respect, I damn well expect you to accord me the consideration, equality, and respect my position demands. We make decisions together, Denys, or we don’t make them at all.”

  She turned and walked out, and she took great satisfaction in slamming the door behind her. Not a very ladylike thing to do, of course, but then, she’d never been a lady anyway.

  Denys stared at the closed door, resentment and arousal seething through him in equal measure. During the past half dozen years, he’d seldom had cause to feel both those emotions at the same time, but now that Lola was back in his life, he had the feeling this tumultuous state was one he would find himself in quite often.

  Perhaps instead of pointing out my supposed deficiencies, you ought to take a hard look at your own.

  He grimaced, painfully aware he was in no position to deny those words. Throwing an accusation of immoral conduct in her face had been hypocritical, not to mention unthinkably boorish, and she’d had every right to call him out for it.

  I’ve only slept with two men in my entire life, and one of them was you.

  He frowned, uneasiness supplanting his anger. The other man was Henry, of course, and yet, even as he thought it, he felt a stab of doubt. The idea of Lola as a virgin when they’d become lovers didn’t square with what he remembered. Granted, she’d had less experience than he would have expected from a girl of her profession, but he’d never have thought her a virgin. Which, if she’d been telling the truth just now, meant that she and Henry hadn’t been lovers, and that was ridiculous.